First Day of Second Grade

At a brand new school.  Lily is such a trooper and is so adaptable.  She told me that she was so excited for her new school that she woke up four times in the night.  However, she was wide awake and ready to roll the first day of school.

Labor Day Weekend

We arrived back in Maryland just before Labor Day weekend.  Long enough to get a bunch of stuff caught up in Maryland, grab two cars worth of stuff to move to Delaware and then off we went to Delaware to get ready for school to start.  In the meantime, we got to enjoy a great Labor Day weekend in Delaware with all our beach friends.  The weather wasn't our normal Labor Day weather due to the hurricane Hermaine that blew through, but we made the best of it with get togethers each afternoon. 

Chloe and Lily riding Madelines pink Cadillac

Chloe, Lily and Sam watching the big waves (from the hurricane) on Bethany Beach

Some girls dress up time for Chloe and Lily

Chuck E Cheese Trip

No trip to Oregon would be complete without a trip to Chuck E Cheese.  I held out as long as I could, but Lily got all her third grade spelling words mastered so I owed her a trip to Chuck E Cheese and what better way to enjoy it than with all her cousins, family and friends in Oregon.  I think all together there were nearly 20 of us.  And of course Grandma Norma and Papa Cliff loved it.  The kids played for over 2 hours and were good too.  Nice ending to a great trip.

Cousins MacKenzie, Madison, Lily and Dani

Albany's annual Hot Air Balloon Festival

Our last weekend in Oregon we got to enjoy what has become an annual Hot Air Balloon festival.  The weather was warm (in the 90's) but the balloons were completely worth it.  Once the evening set in they did a really cool light show with the balloons too.

Pacific City with the best friends a family could ask for

On our last week in Oregon, we were lucky to spend an entire day hanging out with the Carpenters, Kim's best friend since age 4 and great family friends to all of us.  Ahren and Mike rented a house directly on the beach and boy were the views amazing.  We had a great lunch and also enjoyed some homemade blackberry/peach pie and coffee on the beach.  The other amazing thing was that the weather was darned near perfect.  Sun on the Oregon coast is a rarity, so we absolutely enjoyed ourselves.  We also checked out the tide pools, hiked a heck of a sand hill (way to go Lily) and did some hoola hooping on the beach.  So lucky to enjoy the time with such great friends.

Cole, Macy and Lily running for the freezing cold water

Kim, Lily, Cole and Macy climbing the sand hill at Pacific City

While the weather was nice, the water was still a freezing 40 some degrees (ugh)

Cole, Macy and Lily looking in the tide pools

 Macy, Lily, Ahren and "cool" Cole

Mike and Chris

Best friends for 38 years (unbelievable)

Hoola hooping practice (Lily and Ahren)

Weekend in San Antonio

Since cousin Courtney moved to San Antonio, Lily was very disappointed to miss her over the summer.  So we decided a girls trip to San Antonio was in order.  We got to check out Courtney's new school UTSA and got to help her put her apartment together.  We also got to enjoy lots of tourist activities.  The Riverwalk was just as cool as everyone says.  And the food (Mexican, BBQ, etc) was excellent.  It was a fabulous weekend.

Tillamook Cheese Factory

For anyone who has had the pleasure of having Tillamook cheese or ice cream, you will appreciate why a visit to their factory in Tillamook Oregon is such a fun adventure. 

Silver Creek Falls

Hiking Silver Creek Falls is a must do in Oregon, especially since we are so close.  We were joined by Grandma Donna who hiked with us and then we all had a picnic lunch with Grandma Norma and Grandpa Cliff.  They even bought a game of crazy 8's and there was a lot of card playing going on all afternoon.  I think the grandparents have realized how much Lily loves playing all kinds of games.  It was definitely a day of fun had by all.  And the views weren't bad either.

Crabbing the OR Coast

After hitting the Aquarium in Newport, we headed on to Waldport, OR to join Chris and our family to do some crabbing.  It was an incredibly successful day on the water with 75+ crabs.  And we were reminded how much larger the Dungeness crab are than the tiny blue crabs we have in Maryland.  And boy were they good.  The other bonus was that the weather was actually nice enough to have to use sun screen.  Amazing.

We finally made it to the Oregon Aquarium

A week or so prior to I had promised Lily a trip to the Oregon Aquarium, but we kept getting side tracked whale watching and never made it to the Aquarium.  So this was our make up trip and lucky for us we were joined by Aunt Venita.